Rumors say it’s pretty likely that Apple will drop the popular 3.5mm headphone jack from its next smartphone. The decision isn’t sitting well with most potential iPhone 7 buyers; even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has warned that moving to an all-in-one lightning connector is “going to tick off a lot of people.”

There’s a possibility that Apple will include some Lightning-equipped earphones and a Lightning-to-jack adaptor with the next iPhone, but Wozniak doesn’t think this will placate everyone.

“Mine have custom ear implants, they fit in so comfortably; I can sleep on them and everything. And they only come out with one kind of jack, so I'll have to go through the adapter,” he told The Australian Financial Review.

If the 3.5mm jack does disappear, there’s always the wireless option. But Woz thinks we’re not yet at the stage where this can match the quality provided by wired headphones.

"I have cars where you can plug in the music, or go through Bluetooth, and Bluetooth just sounds so flat for the same music," he said. “If there’s a Bluetooth 2 that has higher bandwidth and better quality, that sounds like real music, I would use it. But we’ll see.”

Bluetooth 5, the next revision of the global wireless standard, is set to arrive by 2017 at the latest. It will double the speed and quadruple the range of low energy connections while increasing the capacity of connectionless data broadcasts by 800 percent.

At its Developer Forum in San Francisco last week, Intel spoke about how it wants to replace the 3.5mm jack with USB Type-C. Wozniak hinted that Apple should consider heeding the chip maker's advice and follow "the lead" of its competitors.

“I think USB-C is going to be the future," said Woz. "One of my favorite Android phones, the Nexus 5X, uses that connector. It gives it a higher level in my own thinking."

What is wrong with 3.5mm? It's a simple device that's cheap and incredibly reliable. Not to mention that most of the DACs powering these 3.5mm jacks are far superior to what you can get in a bluetooth headset. I don't know how they're going to do this with USB-C aside from putting the DAC on the headphones themselves, which is a HORRIBLE idea.

What is wrong with 3.5mm? It's a simple device that's cheap and incredibly reliable. Not to mention that most of the DACs powering these 3.5mm jacks are far superior to what you can get in a bluetooth headset. I don't know how they're going to do this with USB-C aside from putting the DAC on the headphones themselves, which is a HORRIBLE idea.

It just ****ing works, what the hell is wrong with these people?

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Its all about forcing you to buy yet another bunch of peripherals. That's all its ever about. Fortunately, by the time USB-C is standardized and ubiquitous most of us will have worn out our USB 3.0 gear, so this time around the forced obsolescence may not be that painful. And I do look forward to USB-C external storage devices.

Its all about forcing you to buy yet another bunch of peripherals. That's all its ever about. Fortunately, by the time USB-C is standardized and ubiquitous most of us will have worn out our USB 3.0 gear, so this time around the forced obsolescence may not be that painful. And I do look forward to USB-C external storage devices.

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I'm all for USB-C, mainly for the "USB Superposition" problem. However, 3.5mm is everywhere, it's cheap and it works GREAT. The stuff they're trying to place it with is more expensive and vastly inferior to it. The DACs built into most phones now are very good and it keeps them fairly well protected. Taking the DAC out of the phone and putting into headphones creates 2 problems.
1) Headphones get tossed around a lot and being outside a protected environment(IE in a phone case) opens it up to all manners of being broken

2)Cost. To keep the price of headphones down, manufactures would most likely use a cheap DAC. Instead of one good DAC we are going to have tons of ****ty ones. Either way, adding a DAC will increase cost regardless of how cheap it may be.

I'm all into Bluetooth... and if you are an audiophile that CAN TELL the difference between awesome and great headphones, you are probably not listening out of an iPhone so I don't really see the issue. Worst case scenario, an adaptor plug.

The funny thing is... apple creates a new phone and there it comes with a new power connector, and now they want to change the 3.5mm plug and hold your panties guys!! Seriously...

Apple was warned when they got rid of the CD ROM DRIVE on their products.
Guess what: they were right.
Digital Downloads have taken off and it's all about Hard Disk capacity, quickly becoming Flash Storage capactiy as SSD gets cheaper.

Most modern speaker systems and cars have Bluetooth stereo. I have an Aux jack in my new Jeep SRT and have never used it.

The only time I'd ever use the 3.5mm jack is if I was on an Airplane and using a pair of earbuds - but regularly, I prefer my LG TONE STEREO BT HEADSEAT.

If you don't want iPhone 7, DON'T BUY IT.

go and buy that slow Galaxy Note 7 nonsense which Youtube showed is slower than the iPhone lol.

I'm getting iPhone 7 256GB Pro so I can make more Youtube videos in 4K and edit them in iMovie iOS even faster. My 6S is an awesome phone, but I need that 256GB storage. apple's storage IS SUPERIOR to that trash in the Note 7 and that silly insertable SD card. I want pure NAND FLASH.

Apple was warned when they got rid of the CD ROM DRIVE on their products.
Guess what: they were right.
Digital Downloads have taken off and it's all about Hard Disk capacity, quickly becoming Flash Storage capactiy as SSD gets cheaper.

Most modern speaker systems and cars have Bluetooth stereo. I have an Aux jack in my new Jeep SRT and have never used it.

The only time I'd ever use the 3.5mm jack is if I was on an Airplane and using a pair of earbuds - but regularly, I prefer my LG TONE STEREO BT HEADSEAT.

If you don't want iPhone 7, DON'T BUY IT.

go and buy that slow Galaxy Note 7 nonsense which Youtube showed is slower than the iPhone lol.

I'm getting iPhone 7 256GB Pro so I can make more Youtube videos in 4K and edit them in iMovie iOS even faster. My 6S is an awesome phone, but I need that 256GB storage. apple's storage IS SUPERIOR to that trash in the Note 7 and that silly insertable SD card. I want pure NAND FLASH.

I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH IT COSTS.

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I never thought that I'd actually see one in the wild, but I guess they're real. Just a quick question, if 4k video is so important to you and you don't care how much something costs, why don't you buy a real 4k video camera with interchangeable lenses?

Apple was warned when they got rid of the CD ROM DRIVE on their products.
Guess what: they were right.
Digital Downloads have taken off and it's all about Hard Disk capacity, quickly becoming Flash Storage capactiy as SSD gets cheaper.

Most modern speaker systems and cars have Bluetooth stereo. I have an Aux jack in my new Jeep SRT and have never used it.

The only time I'd ever use the 3.5mm jack is if I was on an Airplane and using a pair of earbuds - but regularly, I prefer my LG TONE STEREO BT HEADSEAT.

If you don't want iPhone 7, DON'T BUY IT.

go and buy that slow Galaxy Note 7 nonsense which Youtube showed is slower than the iPhone lol.

I'm getting iPhone 7 256GB Pro so I can make more Youtube videos in 4K and edit them in iMovie iOS even faster. My 6S is an awesome phone, but I need that 256GB storage. apple's storage IS SUPERIOR to that trash in the Note 7 and that silly insertable SD card. I want pure NAND FLASH.

I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH IT COSTS.

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Can you please supply a link to your youtube channel? I want to see how awesome all your 30 fps 4k videos are.

Apple was warned when they got rid of the CD ROM DRIVE on their products.
Guess what: they were right.
Digital Downloads have taken off and it's all about Hard Disk capacity, quickly becoming Flash Storage capactiy as SSD gets cheaper.

Most modern speaker systems and cars have Bluetooth stereo. I have an Aux jack in my new Jeep SRT and have never used it.

The only time I'd ever use the 3.5mm jack is if I was on an Airplane and using a pair of earbuds - but regularly, I prefer my LG TONE STEREO BT HEADSEAT.

If you don't want iPhone 7, DON'T BUY IT.

go and buy that slow Galaxy Note 7 nonsense which Youtube showed is slower than the iPhone lol.

I'm getting iPhone 7 256GB Pro so I can make more Youtube videos in 4K and edit them in iMovie iOS even faster. My 6S is an awesome phone, but I need that 256GB storage. apple's storage IS SUPERIOR to that trash in the Note 7 and that silly insertable SD card. I want pure NAND FLASH.

Apple and their products. Ha Ha! Never owned one. They can remove the CPU from all products and it wouldn't matter to me. I do like reading your "discussions" though. Keep up the humor it's what the world needs now

If you don't want iPhone 7, DON'T BUY IT...go and buy that slow Galaxy Note 7 nonsense which Youtube showed is slower than the iPhone lol. I'm getting iPhone 7 256GB Pro so I can make more Youtube videos in 4K and edit them in iMovie iOS even faster. My 6S is an awesome phone, but I need that 256GB storage. apple's storage IS SUPERIOR to that trash in the Note 7 and that silly insertable SD card. I want pure NAND FLASH.
I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH IT COSTS.

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F**K MAN are you awesome, I feel more manly just reading your posts,
disclaimer: I have a Blu-ray reader/cd-rom in my computer

Well for a starter, bluetooth audio on iPhones sux because they don't support decent audio codecs like Apt-X. I would note that Apt-X does not have great market support which is strange because most of the mainstream codecs are terrible. So yes for audiophiles, better BT audio is possible and is proven.

Also Galaxy S7 perf was poor on those benchmarks due to lack of code optimisation. The iPhone code was optimised. There was no apples and apples comparison, pardon the pun.

Edit: The adapters won't be needed once people move onto modern connections on devices. Seriously s-video and black/red RCA? Also any decent monitor will have DisplayPort which you can plug in a mini-DP to DP cable. No adapter required. You can get mini-DP to HDMI as well so that's your TVs taken care of without a separate adapter. The other one I forgot was the ethernet. Now that is one that I wish wasn't required.

Nothing... it's just taking up valuable real estate in the phone... there is already a lightning port that Apple feels can take over the functionality of it - and bluetooth to take over the rest...

Apple can now use that space to add more stuff - maybe more storage, battery, etc...

Anyone bemoaning the loss of the VGA port on their new PC? I remember how p1ss3d off I was when I got a PC without a VGA port - such a pain to find a DVI->VGA adapter... now.... hard to even find anything that requires a VGA adapter... in a few years, we'll feel the same way about 3.5mm...

Nothing... it's just taking up valuable real estate in the phone... there is already a lightning port that Apple feels can take over the functionality of it - and bluetooth to take over the rest...

Apple can now use that space to add more stuff - maybe more storage, battery, etc...

Anyone bemoaning the loss of the VGA port on their new PC? I remember how p1ss3d off I was when I got a PC without a VGA port - such a pain to find a DVI->VGA adapter... now.... hard to even find anything that requires a VGA adapter... in a few years, we'll feel the same way about 3.5mm...

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The move from VGA was mainly one of bandwidth and resolution, when you're talking about 3.5mm it is an analog signal going over copperwire so the "resolution" of the sound is governed by the quality of materials. The fact of the matter is that the 3.5mm system is more reliable and of higher quality than wireless or a lighting port. The other problem is the DAC's, Digital-to-analog converters. A good DAC can do a lot to help a poor pair of headphones, but a poor DAC will still sound horrible with even the highest quality headphones. That's an extreme example, but I hope you get the idea. A good DAC is expensive, but it's usually built into the cost of the device. Wireless or USB headphones you now need to consider the quality and cost of the DAC in the headset. I have a good DAC in my phone and I pair it with better-than-average headphones and I'm a very happy camper.

I personally like to use earbuds and you can get GREAT earbuds for $10-15 if you know where to look, but my personal favorites are the Klipsch R6. With wireless you need to add a Battery, a DAC, and a receiver. You now have to put $40 worth of tech into $10 headphones. If you were wanted to spend $50 on earphones, wouldn't you want to get something worth $50? Since the only thing lowering the "resolution" of my headphones is quality of materials, I can now put more money towards that. If you get a comparable pair of wireless head phones(assuming bandwidth isn't an issue) you still need to put the same quality of materials in it. So if my Klipsch headphones were $50(I got them on sale for $35), A quality wireless analog would cost $80-90. You can get wireless headphones in the $15-20 range, but you do so at a significant loss in quality and battery life. I sure everyone on this forum has a love-hate relationship with batteries and I really don't want to have to worry about charging another device. Maybe wireless charging would change my mind on that, but again, added cost for no reason.

Wireless people make the argument that you can't break the chord, however you save the chord at the expense of quality. Bluetooth just doesn't have the bandwidth capability to make good sounding earbuds, Bluetooth 5 might change that but we are still many years off from that. I guess most of the people using them are listening to Pop or Rap so quality probably isn't a concern. Using the lightning port or USB-c you just change the potential port of failure to a, wait for it, more expensive connector.

3.5mm beats wireless tech and other ported connectors in every aspect, it's not even contest. It beats the other techs in availability, ease of use, cost and quality.

I agree with part of that - it's definitely no contest... the 3.5mm will be ditched... so lightning wins... hands down...

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did you get anything out of what I wrote or are you just trying to justify your position? BTW, that article you sent me is by a gossip and rumor site, he has no idea what he's talking about. This becomes abundantly apparent when you look at his other articles. I assume you went to google and typed in something along the lines of "lighting port better than 3.5mm" without actually checking the source itself.

Wozniak shouldnt worry about what apple does with their products. I would have never given that company a chance when it was starting like he did with steve jobs. He should have found someone more flexible to work with. Imagine microsoft developed their stuff after apple and still managed to over run apple in sales and innovation very easily

did you get anything out of what I wrote or are you just trying to justify your position? BTW, that article you sent me is by a gossip and rumor site, he has no idea what he's talking about. This becomes abundantly apparent when you look at his other articles. I assume you went to google and typed in something along the lines of "lighting port better than 3.5mm" without actually checking the source itself.

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I did.... I just take issue with people stating that things are "facts" when they are merely opinions.... I THINK that lightning is better than 3.5mm - I know there are a LOT of people who agree with me (including Apple)...

Wozniak shouldnt worry about what apple does with their products. I would have never given that company a chance when it was starting like he did with steve jobs. He should have found someone more flexible to work with. Imagine microsoft developed their stuff after apple and still managed to over run apple in sales and innovation very easily

I did.... I just take issue with people stating that things are "facts" when they are merely opinions.... I THINK that lightning is better than 3.5mm - I know there are a LOT of people who agree with me (including Apple)...